


paws, tails, and all it entails

by geniewish



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Changhyuk, Child Kihyun, Dogs, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Kid Fic, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, changhyuk the dog fathers of the year, mentioned honeypeach, no its literally just dogs and a child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 20:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19410487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geniewish/pseuds/geniewish
Summary: Changkyun, Minhyuk, eight dogs and... a child?





	paws, tails, and all it entails

**Author's Note:**

> this has no meaning whatsoever, just something i wrote because i wanted fluffy changhyuk and changhyuk with dogs (and a child, apparently)
> 
> breeds and names of all dogs are in the end notes
> 
> hope you enjoy!!

“Come over,” Changkyun blurts into the phone, hurriedly dropping a bag of groceries on the kitchen counter and making glass bottles inside clink and clank. 

“Like, now?” Minhyuk yawns on the other end of the line.

Changkyun fixes the phone between his ear and his shoulder and starts hastily unpacking the content of the grocery bag and shoving it into the fridge. “Yeah, now, it’s an emergency.”

“I have so much to do.” Minhyuk’s voice comes out high and strained, like he is stretching on the couch in his apartment, head thrown over the edge. 

“And I have an unplanned meeting with a client and a dinner,” Changkyun sounds almost apathetic to his own problems, but inside his heart is hammering in his chest with a growing anxiety about being late and coming back home after midnight to a gruesome bloodbath. “I can’t take the children with me, please, Minhyuk.” He doesn’t put any effort into at least trying to resemble a plea, and the other guy only hums, hums like there is a hole in his throat and his lungs are being torn apart by the deadlines. He is probably arching between the couch and the floor.

“Fine,” Minhyuk croakes out and grunts, sitting up. 

“Thank you, I’ll see you in half an hour.” Changkyun drops the call and slams (gently nudges) the fridge door close. 

When Minhyuk arrives at last, the house is in a greater state of chaos than it was before. Changkyun opens the front door, mumbles a greeting and runs back into the depths of the living room, something human-sized perching in his arms. 

“What’s the meeting about?” Minhyuk shouts from the foyer, pulling the sneakers off his feet. Carrot Cake trots to greet him with an open mouth, tongue out, smiling like the good ginger boy he is. Minhyuk gasps in exaggerated surprise and bends down. “Hello-o-o-o, Cakey,” he singsongs, “who’s a good boy, huh, who’s a good boy?” He smiles and enthusiastically rubs the Shiba’s chubby cheeks, making the creature sit down and melt. 

“They want music for an ad,” Changkyun stumbles into the foyer again, somehow out of breath, “or something.” He looks around, eyes seemingly calm but feverishly glinting on the bottom of black pupils. He glitches until a tiny hand lightly taps his cheek.

“I have so many papers to mark,” Minhyuk straightens and approaches the other man, and Changkyun wrinkles his eyes in a grimace and shakes his head, cursing on the inside. “Hey, little one,” Minhyuk whispers in a small voice, reaching for the child’s little head with his large palm and ruffling his thread-thin hair. 

“Here, take Kiki,” Changkyun says, bounces the boy in his arms to prevent him from sliding down and hands him over to Minhyuk, running away again. 

“You know he can walk on his own, right?” The other says but sits the child more comfortably in his arms.

“Spice wouldn’t leave him alone, keeps licking his face and stuff like an overprotective parent,” Changkyun replies somewhere from the floor between the couch and the coffee table, and when he straightens, smashes his head against the glass, ouching. 

“How long you’re gone for?” Minhyuk makes a step into the living room but finds an obstacle between his legs – Witch, the tall and hairy Irish Wolfhound, bumps into his hip and breathes loudly through her mouth, expecting pats from her best friend. Little Ki looks down at the creature curiously. 

“I actually don’t know, probably until late at night,” Changkyun grabs his bag and waddles towards the front door, rubbing his head. Ki releases a tiny-tiny giggle. 

“Did you walk the dogs?” Minhyuk nearly stumbles over the overly affectionate Wolfhound girl and shushes her, gently prodding her back with his foot. He walks back to the foyer, and Ki turns his head around, staring at Witch and making popping sounds with his lips. 

“I sent you pics,” Changkyun replies, bent over tying his shoes, and when he rises up again, his face is flushed. 

“The second time?” Minhyuk’s lower lip bulges out in a small pout, and Ki looks at him and copies. 

Changkyun frowns with his whole face, attempting to recall the past three hours. “No, I didn’t have time, I only took Lavvy for a walk to the store.” He throws a jacket over his shoulders, taps his pockets, grabs his bag and gets ready to leave.

“We’ll go to the park then,” Minhyuk stands close, stretching his neck forward as if waiting for something, and when Changkyun finally looks up from the lock on the door, he feels a little lightheaded. Minhyuk’s black hair is fluffy and messy, like he forgot to brush it after showering, and his face is pink and blushed, makeupless. He reaches to peck him on the lips. 

“Thank you,” Changkyun offers a dimpled smile and turns to the kid. “Bye, Kiki,” he widens his eyes and raises his eyebrows, exaggerated, and waves. 

“Bye,” Ki smiles, and Changkyun smooches him on the forehead.

“Give me a high five,” he raises his palm, squishing all the fingers together to make it as small as possible, and lets a little toothy smile slip when Ki slaps his hand with his tiny one back. 

“Bye, babe,” Minhyuk calls and waves until the door closes behind his boyfriend. 

Once the foundation of a creation is put, next come floor plans and pipe systems and room planning. Design the facade with references to history, call every little curve on the roof a fancy term, make it look magnificent and pleasing to the eye. Brick by brick, the walls are built high and strong, leaving gaps out for windows and doors, and then shield the naked body with stucco and cute wallpaper with dog prints. Fill the empty space with furniture, colour it with life, decorate it with personality traits. If the time is right, the creation will never rip at the seams.

Not even when the dogs pee in the corners, or when an impossible amount of books on shelves slowly pushes a dent into the floor, or when a three-year-old paints the walls with permanent markers, or when someone particularly clever digs a fork into a toaster and ruins a perfectly healthy electrical socket. Somehow, the house stands strong, and after so many years, still keeps the intimate whispers and rushed shouts and infectious laughs and shushed cries. This house looks suspiciously like a relationship that’s been building up for years. 

Minhyuk subconsciously massages Soda’s head as he marks his eighth-graders literature essays and contemplates how long he can stay awake before Changkyun comes back home. He brings his hand to his face and rubs his nose, sniffing – breezy October nights have already gotten their shivering fingers under his shirt and made him catch a little cold. Something tickles under his nostrils, and he looks at his palm covered in long white fur – a result of petting his Samoyed baby girl for the past half an hour. 

Little Ki is doodling something on the coffee table next to him with coloured pencils. They’re settled on the floor for the kid’s convenience, relatively comfortable on the thick frieze carpet, and Witch, Soda and Danny are lying around in their feet, calm. When Minhyuk concentrates on cursive words on lined papers a little too hard and forgets to massage the Samoyed girl’s head, she quietly whines and puts her head on his thighs, black saddened eyes like two ravens hidden in a fluffy white cloud. 

Minhyuk only has a few unmarked essays left when Ki stops mindlessly doodling and looks up with his little confused teardrop-like eyes. “Kkung comes home, when?” He asks, a note of worry traceable in his voice. 

“Huh?” Minhyuk jerks out of his strenuous working headspace and, seeing the child’s puffy face and unconsciously pouted lips, bulges his own lower lip forward. 

“When Kkung coming home?” The boy repeats. Spice, a big, very big black Great Dane, trots around the living room in search of a squeaky toy, and even from far away, he looks scarily larger than the tiny three (almost four)-year-old on the floor. 

“He’s coming late,” Minhyuk pouts, a bit exaggerated, and Ki copies the expression.

“We taking puppies outside, no?” He picks up a pencil again and starts scratching over the paper like his goal is to paint the whole world red.

“Yes, we will take the puppies to the park,” Minhyuk replies in a cheerful high voice and spins the red pen between his fingers, “But I have to finish reading first, is that okay with you, Kiki?” He leans closer to the boy, and the other nods. Apple runs into the living room and announces her arrival with a short bark. “There is my baby girl!” Minhyuk gasps and claps his hands together, smiling as the tiny ginger Pomeranian dog elegantly ambles towards him with a stuck out tongue, her extremely fluffy tail bouncing behind her. 

There are eight dogs in this house, and adopting a barely twenty-centimetres-tall toy dog into a family full of wolves, hounds and other massive creatures, was the most questionable decision Changkyun has ever made. 

Apple is doing just fine though, and Kiki loves her just as much as he loves Eddie and Lavender who almost willingly carry the child around on their backs, if not more.

Minhyuk picks up the orange cloud of a creature and puts her on her hind legs, belly facing the boy. “When are we going to the park, Kiki?” Minhyuk hides behind Apple’s fluffy head and asks in a dramatic husky baritone, making Ki giggle. 

“When Minnie done with work!” He replies like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and squeaks when Minhyuk leans forward and lightly-lightly taps the kid’s shoulder with Apple’s paw. He pretends to bark, and the Pomeranian girls starts excitedly licking the boy’s cheek, and Ki leans to the opposite side with a mouthful of high-pitched laughter. “Wet!” He titters out, curling into himself to protect his face from the mighty attack of the small pup. 

Minhyuk laughs too and lets go, and Apple runs away when she hears a squeaky toy being thrown around in the kitchen. The man claps, “Okay! Ten minutes, and we are going out.” 

They only manage to take three dogs with them. Spice, the biggest boy of them all, Witch, the biggest girl of them all, and Danny, because he’s a Husky and tends to go crazy (and stupid) if he doesn’t get to run from one end of the park to the other at least once a day. 

Shutting the glass door to the little backyard where the dogs spend playing for majority of the day, Minhyuk pushes through the crowd of whining creatures to the foyer. Ki is waiting by the red sitting stroller and unsuccessfully tries to hide from an overly affectionate Great Dane boy. 

Minhyuk puts a leash on the chosen trio, fastens the child in his royal seat and heads out. 

The neighbourhood Changkyun resides in is full of quiet little families and old couples, and as much as his boyfriend loves avant garde and postmodern and studio brick walls, he loves his (their) dogs more, so buying a preppy yellow cottage house with a cute fancy backyard was, perhaps, the most practical and yet the weirdest decision the man has ever made (after adopting Apple). Minhyuk likes it though; it almost makes them look like they’re established adults who have everything in their lives sorted. 

Unlike Hyungwon, who barely balances a job, a rebellious boyfriend and a three (four)-year-old Kihyun on his frail shoulders. 

“Spice!” Minhyuk shouts, “Spice,” he threateningly lowers his voice to calm down the overly excited dog and prevent Ki from flying out of his stroller. Everything about Spice is a little ‘overly’ – he’s overly tall, overly affectionate, overly loud and overly fast, so fast that Minhyuk built up some serious leg muscles while going for a run with the dog every morning a few years ago. It’s now officially Changkyun’s job. 

But, oh boy, does Minhyuk still run around after the bewildered excited dogs like he’s the one with rabies and not Hoseok’s patients in the vet clinic he works in. 

Ki plops on the cold ground with his toy cars, Minhyuk grabs him under the armpits and puts him back on his feet, and while he’s scolding him and educates him about the nasty weather, Spice and Danny have long gone out his sight. And while he chases after the creatures like Shepherd after sheep, Ki plops back on the ground and stomps the barely living grass with the tiny wheels, making funny whooshing sounds with his mouth and digging the soil like it’s his paid full-time job. 

“Ki! Get up!” Minhyuk wheezes out, and the boy raises a car into the air and whooshes it above his head, brown dirt falling on his knees and barely missing his tiny button nose. 

“Danny! Bad boy, give me the ball,” the poor guy puts his hands on his knees and tries to breathe, and the Husky teases him with a red ball in his mouth and jumps back when Minhyuk tries to take it away. 

Witch is mindlessly trotting around the park in search of some tiny bugs to chase. 

“Hey, how is it going?” Changkyun calls him when Minhyuk gets out of the bathroom with a sweaty shirt on his shoulder and a towel under his armpit. Can’t leave the child alone for long – Lavender might eat his doodles, and Ki would cry tears of pure manly agony. 

“It’s going,” he replies, fanning his face. “Since when is Danny such a heathen? He bit the leash when we were getting ready to leave the park.”

“Probably took after me,” Minhyuk can hear a tiny grin in Changkyun’s voice. Five years ago they even had a pretty serious theory that Danny is actually his boyfriend’s long lost brother. 

“Not giving him any treats today, he tortured me to death,” Minhyuk falls on the couch and grunts when Eddie climbs up as well and drops his golden head on his stomach. 

Changkyun hums like he’s pouting. “He’ll be sad,” he says, however, without a shiver in his voice. 

“I’ll be the sad one if I pop a lung chasing after him.” Minhyuk looks over at a calmly doodling Ki and detaches the phone from his ear. “Wanna talk to Kkung?” He softly asks. 

The boy glances at him and quietly shakes his head. 

Minhyuk snorts. “Ki doesn’t wanna talk to you.”

Changkyun gasps in exaggerated offence. “Can’t believe he’s already grown tired of me.”

“Yeah, by the way, when’s Hyungwon picking him up?”

Changkyun releases a short ‘eh’. There are furious beeps and piercing honks in the background, like he’s driving through rush hour. “In a couple of days, I think. Do you think he’ll remember?”

Minhyuk purses his lips and jerks his eyebrows. “Fifty-fifty.”

“Is it papa?” Ki’s little voice gathers all of Minhyuk’s attention, and he looks over at the child who’s pointing at his phone. 

“No, Kiki, it’s Kkung.” He softly replies with a smile. 

Ki sighs and continues doodling. Spice is melancholically observing their interaction with his head on the coffee table. 

“Okay, I have my dinner appointment now, so I’ll see you back home, yeah?” Changkyun’s voice gets quieter like he’s moving around the car gathering his things. 

“See you soon, pup,” Minhyuk thoughtlessly says, staring at the ceiling, and drops the call, missing a tiny-tiny humming giggle from his boyfriend at the pet name. 

It’s past midnight when Changkyun comes back home. 

It’s quiet and dark, only dim ceiling lights in the kitchen and a lamp in the corner illuminating the sleeping dogs spread on the floor around the couch and the coffee table. 

Hidden in the pillows, little Ki is swirled into a tiny croissant, quietly sniffing in his sleep. Changkyun carefully steps over Lavender to reach his dozed off boyfriend. He passed out on the floor too.

He fits into their small hound pack like it’s where he belonged his entire life. 

Endearment blooms in Changkyun’s chest like cottonwood, whirling in his chest as he squats down in front of his boyfriend and smiles at his funnily opened mouth. He lightly pokes his hollow cheekbone.

“Hey, Minhyuk,” he whispers. The other only breathes out at the disturbance. “Babe,” Changkyun stretches, still poking the gentle skin with the grown nail on his pointer finger, “Minhyuk, wake up.” He gives his boyfriend a little shake. 

Minhyuk stirs, grunting quietly. His eyes blink open, and he clumsily twitches his head upwards. 

“You’re back,” he croaks out, struggling to keep his eyes open.

Changkyun twirls a fluffy strand of black hair around his finger, smile growing a little wider. “Yeah.”

He carefully picks up their little protégé from the couch, holding his head to not disturb the boy’s sleep, while Minhyuk gracelessly cleans all the pillows they threw around earlier and puts them back in place. With the absence of a crib, Ki usually sleeps next to Changkyun in his very big adult bed, but today he lays the child exactly in the middle and puts his favourite plushie – Mr Thief, a fox – between his gently clasped hands. Minhyuk gets upstairs with a sleepy pout, rubbing the back of his head and barely managing to keep his eyes open.

“Did you manage to mark all your papers?” Changkyun whispers as he undresses and gets ready for bed.

Minhyuk nods and accepts his (or maybe Changkyun’s) pyjama pants and tumbles into the bathroom. He has his everything here – from the toothbrush to his favourite shower gel and bath bombs – and in moments like these, he doesn’t mind living whole long and boring kilometres away from his boyfriend. In the past week, the sink table has accommodated a new tiny red toothbrush and a bunch of bottles for baby washing, and Minhyuk secretly finds it strangely endearing. But he is too sleepy to dwell. 

With the child in his bed, Changkyun even learned to be a tad bit decent and started wearing his (or maybe Minhyuk’s) pyjama pants to sleep, although not a few days ago he sent his boyfriend a picture of a peculiar spot on his knee, for the thousandth time complaining that that wearing fabric to sleep is bad by all means and theorising exactly why. You get a spotty butt, duh, he says convincingly. 

They settle on the wide bed on both sides of the peacefully sleeping child. Minhyuk falls asleep again nearly immediately, clutching Changkyun fingers in his hold even as his mind travels somewhere far away from the spacious bedroom in his boyfriend’s yellow cottage house. 

Changkyun briefly thinks that eight long years ago, back when everything around him was so insanely different, Minhyuk was still the same stable constant in his life. 

Eight years ago, he didn’t have a house with a fancy little backyard and bushes of flowers for his dogs to play in. In fact, he didn’t even have dogs. He had one single puppy, and, oh boy, was she hard to take care of. 

“Come over,” Changkyun blurted into the phone, breathing faster than he usually did. His foot was anxiously tapping a messy beat on the carpeted floor. 

“Like, now?” Minhyuk breathed out a reply. He sounded exhausted, like he had been working on an overdue essay for hours and hours in the library. 

“Yeah, please, Minhyuk, it’s an emergency.” Changkyun started biting the skin around his thumb. 

The guy on the other end of the line sighed. “Okay, I’ll be half an hour.”

“Thank you,” Changkyun exhaled with relief. “Oh, and, Minhyuk,” he quickly said before dropping the call, “can you buy a cardboard box on the way?”

Minhyuk released an utterly confused ‘eh’ in response. 

“Just a small one or, rather, medium, actually.”

“Oh-kay,” Minhyuk said suspiciously, and before he could ask all the important questions, Changkyun started again:

“I might have brought back something I shouldn’t.” 

By the loud clap on the background, Changkyun assumed Minhyuk hurriedly closed his laptop. “Wrap it ten thousand plastic bags and put it at the depth of your underwear drawer, I’m coming.”

It took Changkyun a second to understand the implication. “God, Minhyuk, not that.” He rubbed his eyes. 

“What then?”

“Just come and see.” Receiving the confirmation, he dropped the call. 

Changkyun greeted Minhyuk by the entrance to his student accommodation, let him in and quickly ran upstairs. 

“That urgent?” The other guy hurried after him. 

“Yeah. Did you bring the box?” Minhyuk pointed at a square of thick straight cardboards under his armpit. 

“You owe me a whole dollar.”

Changkyun breathed out sharply before opening the door to his room. It took Minhyuk a couple of seconds to spot what was off. 

“Oh, my god, that’s a dog.”

The words hang in the air seemingly for an eternity before the owner of the room crouched next to the dark grey-black puppy on the carpeted floor and put a tentative palm on her head. 

“Yeah.”

Minhyuk’s widened eyes took their normal size. “You’re not allowed pets in the accommodation, you’ll get in trouble.” He took a few shy steps into the room, eyes unchangeably kept on the lying creature and his guilty-looking friend. 

“That’s why I need you, to get in trouble together.” Changkyun attempted a little smile, but what was meant to be sneaky ended up looking like a tortured grimace. 

Minhyuk carefully crouched in front of the puppy too, who was still calmly resting on the floor like she experienced all the exhaustion of the world. “How did you even manage to get him here?”

“Her, first of all, and in my sports bag.” Changkyun pointed at an empty gym sack in the corner. Minhyuk jerked an eyebrow. The other guy sighed. “I was coming back from the gym and saw a homeless guy with a big dog, and he was like, someone please give me money for a litter of puppies or they’ll die, and they were all so cute and sad, I couldn’t just leave them alone.” Changkyun started nervously scratching the creature’s head. “So I bargained and took one of them.” He offered a pursed smile, flashing his little dimples, and all Minhyuk could do was slowly raise his hand and watch the puppy’s reaction to it. She was apathetic to any movements around them whatsoever, so Minhyuk took the chance and touched the soft cheek. 

“Is she a stray?”

“The man said they’re actually purebred. She’s a hound, like, a proper hound. Will be big and all.”

Minhyuk’s eyes rise slowly to Changkyun’s face. “How big?”

The other raises his hand and pouts, trying to remember the approximate size of a grown dog he saw on the street. “This big?” His hand froze a little over his head. 

There was doom written all over Minhyuk’s face. But he wasn’t studying to become a teacher for nothing, he was responsible (arguably) and clever (in his areas of interest), so he slapped his knees and stood up. “Right, let’s hide her in the box and bring her to the vet, then we’ll go to my parents’ house and see what we can do.”

Changkyun kind of beamed, as much as beaming meant in terms of his usually gloomy expression. “Great, fantastic, let’s go.” 

Sneaking a very, very big puppy out of his student accommodation was a whole mission on its own. 

Minhyuk’s parents lived in town, whereas Changkyun’s didn’t, so it was the only logical place they could think of to hide a puppy in the meantime. Minhyuk’s parents were a blessing to the world, because not only did they say they would guard the creature for as long as the boys needed to find a better place for her, they even allowed them to use a bathroom to clean her. 

From the moment Minhyuk rolled up his sleeves and got the water running, Changkyun had a foreshadowing thought that maybe taking a puppy from the street was the best decision he’d ever made. 

His heart was already thumping chaotically in his chest whenever Minhyuk was around him, but seeing the guy talk to the dog like she was his own child, wash her head and dirty paws and coo at her squeals of surprise, Changkyun fell harder than his thought was possible. 

Sometimes raising a child together helps you figure out exactly who you’ve been needing to have by you side all your life. 

And Witch was the starting point of it all.

There are times when Changkyun lies in bed, either ready to sleep or still with his laptop on his knees with unfinished tracks he’s working on, and wanders off to think about what would have happened if Witch didn’t push Minhyuk into his arms when they were walking her together, if she didn’t bark when Changkyun was suddenly too shy to invite the other on a date, if she didn’t stay quiet in the shadows when they took her to play in a park and settled down late at night in such a romantic atmosphere that the first kiss seemed almost inevitable. 

At the end of the day, Minhyuk is the only person who understands Changkyun in his uncontrollable urges to adopt big sad-looking puppies at the most random times. 

He is scared to imagine what can potentially happen once they return Ki to his rightful parent. 

(Because he will secretly miss the tiny rascal a bit too much.) 

In moments like these, when the three of them huddle in Changkyun’s white compact bathtub, masking the desire to take a relaxing bubble bath with serious intentions of washing the little boy, he wonders how he managed to find himself in such a domestic situation. The entire past year has been just one domestic situation, ever since Hyungwon became the trouble of a parent. 

Minhyuk made it a habit to claim Ki as his own child every once in a while. Changkyun doesn’t mind – it only makes him wish more intensely for the other man to maybe someday be something more legal than just boyfriends. 

“Die!” Ki exclaims and drowns a little toy battleship he always takes bathing with him. 

Changkyun and Minhyuk exchange half-amused, half-terrified looks. “What if people died on the ship?” Changkyun asks, splashing some water on the boy’s back. 

“No, it’s monster,” the kid explains like the two adults are stupid. 

“There are monsters on the ship?” Minhyuk asks and takes the second toy boat and slides it over the bubbles. 

“Yes,” Ki smashes the battleship into the water, sending stinging splatters right into Minhyuk’s eyes, who’s barely fitting into the tub in front of him. His knees stick out of the bubble cloud like some strange rocky hills. 

“I wonder if Hyungwon remembers to pick him up,” Changkyun says, carefully pouring water over the little head. Minhyuk snorts. 

“Papa?” Ki asks, ripping the toy boat out of Minhyuk’s hold and smashing it into the water too. 

“Yes, papa,” the man replies. “Thought the boat is for saving the ship crew?”

“No crew, just monster,” the boy utters with a slight note of passive aggression, like his not-yet-adoptive dads are beyond the level of stupid. 

“He’s coming back on Friday, right?” Minhyuk nods in confirmation, and Changkyun takes a bottle of children’s shampoo and squeezes a tiny amount onto his palm. “Let’s wash your head, son.”

Ki’s hair is thin, short, swirling at the top of his head like wet threads. Changkyun carefully massages his scalp, while Minhyuk gently wipes his face when traces of soap slide down his cheeks. 

“Can’t believe Jooheon couldn’t get another manager that wasn’t his boyfriend,” Changkyun mutters, and Minhyuk laughs silently, crinkling his eyes. 

“Stop sounding so spiteful, you love Ki.”

“‘Course I do,” Changkyun carefully washes off the shampoo, gently tilting the boy’s head back. He gives the crown of his head a quick smooch. “But Hyungwon is a dumbum.”

“Papa?” Ki exclaims again. 

“Yes, papa.” Minhyuk blindly searches for the drowned toy boat under his feet. 

“Think we need a code name.” Changkyun catches his boyfriend’s eyes and gives him a suggestive glance. 

“Sloth?” Minhyuk curves his eyebrows. 

Quickly concealing a snort, Changkyun frowns and nods with all seriousness. “Yeah, sloth works.”

“Sid and, what’s his name, the ancient lion creature from _Ice Age_?”

“Diego,” Changkyun frowns deeper, for real this time, “isn’t it a tiger?”

Minhyuk shrugs, “They’re all the same.”

“Tiger!” Ki splashes the water with his fists and tries to imitate growling sounds with his tiny baby teeth. 

“Oh, god, he’s taken after him,” Changkyun sighs like all the desperation of the world has finally caught up to him and tries to stand up to get a towel. 

The overly excited call of ‘papa, papa’ resonates through the entire house like a siren during the war. 

Hyungwon finally arrived to pick up his kid. 

“Papa!” Ki jumps into his arms and joyfully shouts when the man raises him in the air. 

“Hi, little one,” is drowned in a cacophony of barks and howls from overprotective dogs that growl at everyone who comes through the main door, even if this everyone is a good old friend of many years. 

Minhyuk tries to shush Spice and Danny and Apple and lightly taps Lavender on the nose so he stops sniffing Hyungwon’s bag. He picks Apple up, holding her exactly like the other man, and they look pretty identical with tiny barking creatures sitting in their arms. Fussy Fathers Fellowship, or something. 

“How was the trip?” Changkyun asks, and his hand automatically gravitates towards Ki’s little head. 

“Good, yeah,” Hyungwon sighs and stares into nothingness for a few seconds. “Tired.” He breathes out like all the exhaustion of the world is still hunting him down. 

“Understandable,” Minhyuk smiles sympathetically and bounces Apple in his arms. Hyungwon unconsciously does the same while the boy tugs at his locks and nuzzles into his cheek. 

“Thank you so much for looking after this tiny—“

“Don’t say bastard.” Changkyun warns. 

“Changkyun!” Minhyuk’s eyes widen.

“What! He said that before!” The other’s massaging claw in Ki’s thin hair grows a little tighter. 

“There’s a child right here!”

“...monkey.”

Changkyun twitches his head to the side, judging the choice of vocabulary with a pensive purse of his lips. “Yeah.”

“Anyway, Jooheon is waiting in the car,” Hyungwon rubs his eyes, and Ki forcefully detaches his hand from his face and leads a finger into his mouth, immediately biting on a protruding knuckle. 

“Of course,” Changkyun politely holds the door open. 

“If you ever need our help—“

“Which you do—“

“Don’t hesitate to call.” Minhyuk smiles widely-widely and nudges an overly overwhelmed Danny further into the house. Apple wiggles to break free and longingly looks into the (mess of a) living room. Minhyuk bends down to let her go. 

“Thank you so much.” Hyungwon smiles through the pain and ouches, “Are you a puppy?” He whispers to Ki and makes a disapproving (yet soft) expression, quickly patting the little boy’s head. 

“We’ll see you soon!” Minhyuk and Changkyun both reach for Ki’s round cheeks and leave him a couple of smooches each, squeezing his hands and ruffling his poor hair. 

There’s Jooheon sitting in the car, window open, and he gives a toothy dimpled smile upon seeing the boy in Hyungwon’s arms. 

“Say bye to the doggies,” Minhyuk whispers before Hyungwon tumbles out of their house. 

“Bye, doggies,” Ki calls and gives a tiny wave somewhere behind him as his father takes him to the car. 

Closing the door, Minhyuk rests against it, sighs and pouts in a strangely resigned grimace. “Hope we’re invited to his fourth birthday party.”

Changkyun makes an inconspicuous move to get closer to his boyfriend and lightly turns his chin towards himself, leaning in and kissing, kissing softly. Just a gentle touch of their lips, and Minhyuk already feels all worries lifting off his shoulders and a smile blooming somewhere from within.

He brings a hand to Changkyun’s cheek and kisses him a little louder and tighter, cheerfully, telling him that they’ve done a great job and that if anyone should ever get the title of the father of the year, it should be them. Connected, just like that.

“Bedroom?” Changkyun suggests.

“Oh,” Minhyuk breathes out and kisses again, “I forgot you had that.”

Before any Hollywood-style camera zooms could capture sneaky hands reaching for shirt buttons and pants zippers, Eddie whines somewhere from below and pokes Minhyuk’s hip with his snout. 

“Ah, who’s a good boy?” He immediately separates from the other and bends down to gleefully gasp at his (son) Golden Retriever. Carrot Cake happily trots into the foyer upon hearing his favourite pet name. 

They always ask ‘who’s a good boy’.

“I’ll see you upstairs,” Changkyun says with the left side of his mouth that keeps straining into a smile and walks away. “Lavvy, you good boy, did you have food? Did your dad feed you?”

And no one ever asks ‘how’s the good boy’.

But every squad of good boys needs a little addition of a bad girl.

“Minhyuk!” Changkyun calls through the sea of barks and growls. His boyfriend hurriedly comes downstairs, shaken after finally resting in the nice big soft adult bed on the weekend. Changkyun is trying to carefully fit in through the slightly ajar door without letting in another… creature?

“Babe, don’t get mad.”

Minhyuk’s mouth falls open. The creature by the other side of the door starts barking too.

“Can you lock the pack in the backyard and take the smallest ones on the walk with me?” Changkyun calls, growing a little distressed with all the noise, and Minhyuk can’t do much but roll his eyes and get ready to accept a new member into the family. 

Changkyun claims it was because the house grew scarily quiet after Ki was returned to his rightful family. He also claims it was because Banoffee had the saddest-looking eyes and the cutest caramel-like coat on a street dog he has ever seen.

(In reality, every other stray dog looks like Banoffee, but his heart started beating faster just for her.)

“She doesn’t even look like a Banoffee,” Minhyuk says, guiding the hosepipe into the round red inflatable pool.

“Yes, she does, she is a Banoffee.” Changkyun insists, rubbing the new dog’s cheeks and neck. The rest of their children sadly look outside from behind the glass wall, trapped and bored in the house.

“I’m gonna adopt a dog without telling you and name it Toblerone, then give it to you on your birthday.”

“Hey, Toblerone is god tier chocolate,” Changkyun gets up from his squatting position and leads Banoffee to the improvised bath. She is a little reluctant, takes a step back even when Changkyun encourages her to move into the swimming pool.

“Come on, Banoffee, aren’t you a good girl?” Minhyuk sneaks behind them and lets the weak stream of water fall on the dog’s behind. She almost soars and breaks into a run. The run ends up leading her right into the water. 

It’s in moments like these, when Minhyuk has his sleeves rolled up and his hair sticks to his forehead, when he shouts and falls into the inflated swimming pool with the dog and gets wet too, when foam from the shampoo ends up all over his mouth and he mimics Banoffee shaking the water off her fur, looking like a fool, that Changkyun understands why he is still in love and how it’s been so long. 

Not a day goes by before Minhyuk claims Banoffee as his daughter and litters kisses all over her snout, unbothered by the thoughts about where it could have been before and finding absolute joy in transmitting all that stuff onto Changkyun. He does the same, if he is honest.

Maybe it’s good like that. Just paws, tails, canines and fur all over their hands when it’s shedding season. Just Changkyun, Minhyuk and thirty six paws padding around his yellow cottage house. 

Hyungwon calls not even a week later, asking if they can nurse Ki again for a few days.

**Author's Note:**

> Dogs: Carrot Cake (Shiba boi), Danny (Husky boi), Eddie (Golden Retriever boi), Witch (grey Irish Wolfhound girl), Spice (black Great Dane boi), Soda (Samoyed girl), Lavender (stray Labrador-like boi), Apple (tiny ginger Pomeranian girl), and the last addition is Banoffee (stray unknown breed girl)
> 
> hope you enjoyed and smiled at least once!! 
> 
> hmu on twt @chaeleggiewon bc all i post is puppers changhyuk


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